Nikolai N. Seleznyov, Pax Christiana et Pax Islamica: On the History of Interconfessional Relations in the Medieval Near East / Russian State University for the Humanities, Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies. Moscow: RSUH, 2014. (Series: Orientalia et Classica, Issue XLV). 268 pp. – ISBN 978-5-7281-1594-6. Table of Contents Foreword Heraclius and Isho'yahb II: An Eastern Episode in the "Ecumenical" Project of the Byzantine Emperor The Age of the Caliphate The Epistle on the Unity by a Baghdadi Melkite in a Coptic Encyclopaedist’s Arabic Theological Summa A West-Syrian Clerk from Arfad and the Metropolitan of Jerusalem of the Church of the East: The Book of the Concordance in Faith and Its Recension in Garshuni A Nestorian Philosopher in the Copto-Arabic Literature: Ibn al-Tayyib Retold by Ibn al-'Assal Hunayn ibn Ishaq. "The Most Honorable, the Only One, Knowledgeable, Respectable, Wise Man, Philosopher, and Physician" A Chronicle or A Historical Romance? The Reign of Zeno and the Events in the East According to The Blessed Compendium of al-Makin ibn al-'Amid Interpretations of the Origins of the Designation "Jacobites" by Medieval Egyptian Arabic Authors Christian Communities in the East as Witnessed to by Leonhart Rauwolf Ibn Hazm on the Incarnation of God and Confessional Divisions in Christianity Franks to Nubians: Arabic Treatise on Peculiarities of Different Christian Denominations by a Coptic Author (Mingana Chr. Arab. 71) Bibliography Index of Personal Names Summary By the time of the Muslim conquests of the Middle East, Eastern Christianity had experienced numerous divisions caused by ideological and political confrontations. Controversies over the union of the divinity and the humanity of Christ, perceived as an essential point of Christian doctrine, as well as the Byzantine imperial policy, aiming at strengthening Byzantium’s influence in Syria, Arabia, the Caucasus, and Egypt, had resulted in the separation of the ethno-religious communities of these provinces from Byzantium. The controversies remained unsettled, and the divisions, created by them, continued. To a Muslim observer, Eastern Christianity looked as a hodgepodge of various denominations among which the following three were the most influential: the Syro-Persian Christianity, the Graeco-Roman Orthodoxy, and the anti-Chalcedonian faction, insisting on "one nature" of Christ. Interactions between various communities of Eastern Christianity are witnessed by many sources. The relationships among them were further strengthened in the wake of the Muslim conquests of the Middle East, when the widespread use of Arabic and frequent migrations contributed to the intensification of contacts. When the Franks arrived in the Middle East, they became a part of this extraordinarily diverse milieu and attracted the attention of Eastern Christian communities. The cultural heritage of Middle-Eastern Christianity was so influential in the rest of the Christian world that it frequently attracted the attention of scholars studying particular church traditions. The present book provides a series of interesting examples of how the relationships among various Christian communities developed in the context of Christian-Muslim contacts in the medieval Middle East.

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